Graphic novels have previously been nominated for — and won — the National Book Award, the American equivalent of the Booker. But they have never been nominated for the main fiction category in either the United States or in Britain, despite many achieving critical and commercial success. If Mr. Drnaso wins, it would be the biggest moment for the graphic format since Art Spiegelman’s “Maus” won a special Pulitzer Prize in 1992.

“Sabrina” is the story of a murder in Colorado, but focuses on the internet rumors and conspiracy theories that emerge around it and the impact on those left behind. “It’s an unnerving mystery told by a rigorous moralist, a profoundly American nightmare set squarely in the first year of the Trump presidency,” wrote Ed Park in The New York Times Book Review. “It’s a shattering work of art.”

The Guardian said that reading the novel “is an experience akin to watching a movie. It’s as if the lights have gone down: absorbed and gripped, the skin prickles.”

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“Of course it was in our minds that this is the first,” said Kwame Anthony Appiah, the chairman of the judges, in a telephone interview. “But when the right novel comes along and it’s in your 13 favorites, you put it in the list.”

“The impact of this is the same you have from any great work of fiction,” he added. “You think, ‘Wow! I’ve gone through experiences here. I’ve been made to ask questions and feel emotions.”

It is not the only unusual finalist, he added. The poet Robin Robertson’s “The Long Take,” about a World War II veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder, is written in verse.

Mr. Drnaso is one of three American authors nominated for the prize, alongside Ms. Kushner and Richard Powers for his acclaimed ecological novel “The Overstory.” The Booker Prize has been surrounded by controversy since 2014, when it was opened up to anyone writing in English, and became dominated by Americans. It had previously been limited to writers from Britain, Ireland, Zimbabwe and Commonwealth countries.

Mr. Appiah laughed when asked if the nomination of the first graphic novel would distract from that controversy. Mr. Drnaso is American, he said, and the controversy could reappear if the shortlist, due in September, is dominated by Americans.